Twentieth Century Socialism Part 13

Can security, liberty, and leisure be enjoyed only by a few at the expense of the many? Or can they be enjoyed equally by all?

I am glad in this connection to use the word "enjoyed," because this word a.s.sumes--as indeed the whole bourgeois philosophy a.s.sumes--that the few not only have security, liberty, and leisure, but that they "enjoy" them; whereas I think it can be demonstrated that only the worthless few have leisure and that they do not enjoy it, and that neither the industrious nor the worthless have liberty or security at all. In other words, the few in grasping at these things at the expense of the many _enjoy_ none of them because of the hard fact of human solidarity, which will drive them at last to reconsider all these things. But this belongs to the subject of Solidarity and cannot therefore be elaborated in this chapter.

The essential thing to be kept in mind is that the only liberty worth having is one that will rescue us from _both_ kinds of restraints--natural and human; that it is quite useless to throw off human restraint and fall back into the condition of natural slavery which seems to be the policy of the anarchist; nor is it of any advantage to escape from natural slavery only to become a prey to human despotism or exploitation, according to the creed of the bourgeois. Socialism is the _juste milieu_ between Let-alone-ism on the one hand and Anarchism on the other. Liberty, to be worth having, must secure the greatest emanc.i.p.ation from _both_ restraints possible.

If we apply this notion of liberty to existing conditions, I think we shall come to the following conclusion:

From natural slavery created by men's needs it was impossible for the race to escape, except by the system which actually prevails--of making the unwealthy majority work for the wealthy few. This results in pauperism, prost.i.tution, and crime.

Slavery to Nature in a natural or savage state practically condemns savages to devote their whole time to procuring the necessaries of life, and to protecting these things, once procured, from the spoliation of their neighbors. A great stride in the progress of humanity was made when savages began each to respect the product, of the other's toil. And if this system could have prevailed, our late advance in science and our consequent, control of Nature would secure us two priceless advantages: one, security from spoilation; the other, an organization of labor that would reduce the hours every man would have to spend in procuring the necessaries and comforts of life to a very small fraction of the working day. The results in leisure that would accrue under a cooperative system will be explained later;[77]

but at this point it seems only necessary to indicate that if a man need devote only three or four hours during the working days of his life to satisfying his needs, he would have most of his waking hours to devote to social service, literature, art, music, or amus.e.m.e.nt, to an understanding of his political and economic problems, and to the political organization necessary to secure popular control over government for the first time in the history of the world. Every reform movement in New York has failed because men who wanted reform did not have the leisure to give to it; and the reform movement was therefore left to those who devoted their whole time to it in order to share the plunder on the day of victory. In other words, every reform movement if successful resulted in a political machine animated by selfish motives and therefore as bad as other political machines similarly animated. When every man has time to protect his business interests in the government; when these business interests are not hostile to the general welfare, but coincide with it; and when politics is the business of every man instead of being as now the business of a few professional politicians, then for the first time this world will see a veritable democracy.

Liberty, security, and leisure seem to me altogether the most important things that we can attain through a correct understanding of property. But owing to false notions of property created by the few who have acquired all the property at the expense of their fellow-citizens, there have arisen artificial conditions which have created what may be called artificial slavery; that is to say, personal dependence, political dependence, and economic dependence. Of these three the last is the most important because, in consequence of it, neither personal nor political independence is effectually enjoyed. That these three forms of dependence are unnecessary and are due to false notions of property which can be slowly eradicated, is the belief of the Socialist. It is also his belief that the very changes that will put an end to these three forms of dependence will also set up true notions of property instead of false, and thereby secure the priceless benefits of liberty and security on the one hand and of leisure on the other.

In other words, Socialism proposes not to abolish property, but to reinstate it; to relieve the rich from the insecurity and hatred to which they are now exposed; to rescue them from slavery to wealth and _ennui_; to confer upon them the immense consolation of knowing that what they enjoy is at the expense of no one; that it commits none to pauperism, prost.i.tution, or crime; that it is earned by social service, the only service worth doing; that the consideration they enjoy is due to their own merits and not to inherited or ill-gotten wealth; and to accomplish this by securing to all men the product of their toil; by restoring property to the consideration to which it is ent.i.tled; by furnis.h.i.+ng to every man the maximum of liberty, security, and leisure.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] Book III, Chapter II.

[75] Cicero, "Pro Cluentio," sec. 53.

[76] Book III, Chapter III.

[77] Book III, Chapter V. Economic Aspect.

CHAPTER V

THE RESULTS OF PROPERTY

Not only did Proudhon make a great mistake in condemning all property, but some Socialists still make the same mistake; for property even in its worst form has rendered humanity an indispensable service. It is the coc.o.o.n which the human chrysalis has instinctively wound around itself for protection while it is changing from a lower to a higher stage of development.

For example, property even in its worst form--that is, property that puts one man in a position to exploit the labor of another man--has encouraged the intelligent and industrious to acc.u.mulate wealth; and the acc.u.mulation of wealth makes economic development possible; for if a man produced no more than was necessary for the support of himself and his family, there would be no surplus out of which to support those engaged in the development of national resources--for example, the building of roads, the building of railroads, the building of factories, the exploitation of mines. Every progressing nation has got to have two totally different resources--the resources necessary to support that part of the population which is engaged in production and distribution--that is, in keeping the community alive; and the resources acc.u.mulated for supporting those who are developing the country; for example, the building of roads, etc. Obviously, therefore, it is indispensable that more be produced every year than is necessary for the support of those engaged in production and distribution; enough must be produced to support also those engaged in building roads, factories, etc.

Indeed little can be done in developing a country until a certain amount of commodities has been acc.u.mulated for this purpose. Now the acc.u.mulated resources applicable to development form what is called capital--which, in the hands of a few persons, permits of those few exploiting the rest; but in the hands of the producers themselves, will permit of a better development without the evil results of exploitation. It is alleged by opponents of Socialists that Socialism proposes to abolish wealth or capital. It is inconceivable that men supposed to be educated--such as Roosevelt, Taft, Bryan--should be so ignorant in a matter concerning which it is their peculiar duty to be informed. No cabinet minister in England, Germany, or France would be capable of such a mistake.[78] In Europe statesmen take the trouble to study Socialism and thus avoid making themselves ridiculous by such a blunder as believing that Socialism proposes to destroy or abolish wealth. Far from wis.h.i.+ng to abolish wealth, Socialism seeks to enhance it--to consecrate it--to put it beyond the reach of private avarice or public discontent. How they expect to do this will be explained later.

Meanwhile, it is important to keep clearly in mind the fact that it is not wealth that Socialists denounce, but the present distribution of wealth. This explains why well-informed Socialists are the first to recognize the beneficent role which the inst.i.tution of private property even in its worst form has played in stimulating acc.u.mulation.

Here again, whether property was inst.i.tuted for the deliberate purpose of stimulating acc.u.mulation or not, we see once more evolution favoring the survival of those nations who did acc.u.mulate at the expense of those who did not. In a conflict between two tribes, it was the tribe provided with the larger store of good weapons and food that must eventually prevail over the tribe less well provided with these.

And so evolution has pushed men in the direction of acc.u.mulating wealth because it destroyed those tribes which did not acc.u.mulate it and allowed the survival only of those who did.

This acc.u.mulation of wealth involved two qualities of predominating importance in human development, the exercise of forethought and self-restraint. If we compare man with the lower animals we find that there are no qualities in which he differs more from them than in these two. Man is capable of deliberate self-restraint. And the nations most capable of forethought and self-restraint have prevailed over nations which have been less capable of these. Here again, it may be incidentally pointed out that in no respect was the inst.i.tution of property more important to human development than in the recognition of the kind of property which a man originally had in his wife and children; and the more the domestic relations created by this property required exercise of self-restraint, the more the nations having these inst.i.tutions prevailed over those which did not have them.

The systematic survival first of patriarchal tribes over metronymic tribes,[79] and secondly, of monogamous tribes over polygamous tribes, is an unanswerable argument in favor of marriage, of which no well-informed Socialist fails to take account--Mr. Roosevelt to the contrary notwithstanding. The Socialist party is to be judged by its platform and not by extracts of isolated writers who have no more right to bind the whole Socialist party on the subject of marriage, than an isolated Republican or Democrat would have to bind the Republican or Democratic parties respectively. Of course, property of a man in his wife long ago ceased to exist in civilized countries; it has played its part in its time, but disappeared before a more humane, intelligent, and just understanding of the relations of man to his wife. In the same way, the right of property of one man in the labor of another will also yield to a more intelligent and wise understanding of the right of property.

The inst.i.tution of property performs one other function in society of inestimable importance. Early civilizations such as those of Greece and Rome, dominated by families who claimed descent from the G.o.ds, created an aristocracy of birth which, because it was exclusive, tended inevitably to become tyrannical. As, however, rights of property became more and more recognized, the aristocracy found itself confronted by a population that had acc.u.mulated wealth indispensable to the maintenance of the state. Men too who had acc.u.mulated this wealth had done so by the use of their brains, industry, forethought, and self-restraint. They const.i.tuted a group with which the aristocracy of birth had first to parley and to which it had eventually to succ.u.mb. It is true that this group of the aristocracy of wealth, which succeeded the aristocracy of birth, in one sense only replaced one set of rulers by another. But the transfer of power to the aristocracy of wealth was almost always effected through the support of the people, and was almost always attended by some concession of political control to the people. So that on the whole, the tendency has been for every transfer of political power from the aristocracy of birth to the aristocracy of wealth to include some element of popular representation until slowly through the gradual subst.i.tution of the bourgeoisie for the king, n.o.ble, and priest, the people has secured the priceless boon of the franchise which it has not yet learned to use.[80]

-- 1. THE GUILD

Now that we have given full credit to the role which property has played in the world, let us consider some of its results. In the first place, let us eliminate a prevailing error. We frequently read in Socialist books that the compet.i.tive system is the necessary result of the inst.i.tution of private property. This is not altogether true: Obviously, the inst.i.tution of property has connected with it the notion that as long as men are protected in the product of their labor, every man is bound to labor enough to support himself; and if he does not so labor, he must suffer the natural consequences. Under this system, every man is at liberty to labor in whatever occupation he chooses, to produce as much as he can, and to get the best price he can for what he produces. No attempt will be made here to describe the abominable consequences of this system prior to the Middle Ages. The history of the industrial struggle prior to the Middle Ages is still obscure and complicated. But the Crusades in the eleventh century withdrew from Europe the most turbulent of its oppressing n.o.bility and the most servile of its religious subjects. The result was to give to the less servile craftsmen an opportunity to organize themselves against the n.o.ble and the priest in defence of their common craft. So we find all over Europe an immense development of guilds or corporations organized by the respective crafts or industries, primarily for self-defence, and secondarily, for the organization and regulation of labor therein. The story of these guilds has been too often written to make it necessary to repeat it here.[81] I shall content myself therefore with pointing out that these guilds did for a season exercise an extraordinarily beneficial effect, not only on industry, but on government. The guilds were composed not only of employers, but also employees, and thus stand out in marked contrast to trade unions. In many respects, however, they were similar to trade unions. Thus they had benefit funds in case of sickness and death; and they were animated by a sense of solidarity similar to that which animates the trade unions. But the fact that the guild included employer as well as employee gave it also different and important functions. Every guild at the outset was inspired by a sense of self-respect as well as of solidarity. It was a matter of pride with them that the guild should furnish no goods not up to standard. The guild therefore early established elaborate rules fixing standards and prices so that no man could charge a high price for a low standard of goods, nor could he compete with others in the same guild by offering a high standard of goods for a lower price than that determined by the guild. The guild protected the public from poor workmans.h.i.+p and the worker from compet.i.tion. Moreover, compet.i.tion was still further eliminated by the fact that no man could engage in any craft or trade unless he belonged to the guild organized to defend and protect the trade; and as the guild became a part of the munic.i.p.al government and indeed at certain periods controlled the munic.i.p.al government altogether, the guild was in a position to enforce this rule.

There are many features in the guild system which would be usefully borrowed in a cooperative commonwealth. But the guild system broke down because every guild was concerned with its own interests irrespective of the interests of the whole community. Every guild therefore became a cla.s.s corporation which sought to use the guild for purely selfish purposes. Entrance to the guild was confined to members of the families of those controlling the guild; and no provision was made for the thousands and hundreds of thousands who, because they could not get admission to a guild and could find no work to do upon the land, were left to wander as vagrants through the streets and highways with no alternative save to steal or starve. In other words, the vagrant of the Middle Ages included the unemployed of to-day.

Again, those who controlled the guild sought by limiting the number of its members to create a privileged society from which they could derive wealth without labor. Thus the whole business of killing and selling meat was at one time in Paris confined to twenty persons.

These persons did not themselves engage in the business, but they sublet their respective monopolies to others, and thus const.i.tuted an idle aristocracy.

The abuses which attended the guild system became so intolerable that in 1776, the very year when we in America were setting forth our political rights in the Declaration of Independence, King Louis XVI proclaimed the economic rights of the workingmen in France in one of the most extraordinary doc.u.ments to be found in history.[82] If we could get this Republic of America to promulgate and to put into operation the principles set forth in this decree of an absolute king in 1776, we should secure all that the Socialist party of to-day demands; that is to say, the right secured by law to men, not only to work, but to enjoy the full product of their work. But civilization had not yet advanced far enough to understand the full import of this decree, and the guilds were too powerful at that time to permit of its execution. The Parlement de Paris flatly refused to register the edict. The king tried to execute the edict notwithstanding the refusal by the Paris Parlement; but the attempt created such disorder that in the same year the edict was abrogated. No attempt was made to execute this decree in the provinces whatever. Meanwhile, however, two forces were at work that were destined to break up the tyranny of the guilds.

One was the discovery of steam, which put an end to home industry and subjected workmen to the conditions imposed by the owner of the factory. The other was the growing upheaval of the Tiers Etat, or popular branch of the government, which resulted in the French Revolution.

The French Revolution has been a good deal too much confined by historians to the political upheaval of the people against the n.o.ble, the priest, and the king. Attention has not been sufficiently attracted to the fact that it was at the same time a revolt against the economic tyranny of the corporation or the guild. The cry of liberty which ushered in the French Revolution was not confined to political liberty. It was extended to liberty of industry--liberty of trade--liberty of contract. In other words, what Rousseau did for political emanc.i.p.ation with his theory of social contract, de Quesnay did for economic emanc.i.p.ation with his doctrine of _laissez faire_, a doctrine which prepared the way for the political economy of Adam Smith and that of the Manchester School.

The essential principle preached by de Quesnay and later by Adam Smith and Herbert Spencer, is that every man must in his efforts to support himself and acc.u.mulate wealth be "let alone!"

It is of the utmost interest that this policy of _laissez faire_ was inaugurated under the cry of liberty and is still supported on the ground of liberty. When we see the evil consequences of this kind of liberty we shall feel like crying with Madame Roland when she saw the guillotine doing its grim work on the Place de la Greve:

"O liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

And here we shall appreciate the importance of having clear ideas as to what liberty is and of therefore being able to distinguish false notions of liberty from true.

If leaving to every man absolute liberty as to what he is to produce, how he is to produce, and what he shall charge for it, would result in the most orderly and therefore economical system of production and distribution; if it were to secure to every man work in the first place, and the product of his work in the second place, then it would be justified. But if it produces none of these things, but on the contrary, produces the greatest conceivable disorder and therefore greatest possible waste; if it not only fails to a.s.sure to men the product of their work, but even fails to give as many as one-third of those engaged in industry any chance of working at all, as at present, so that hundreds of thousands and even millions are at this time of writing not only without work, but actually on the verge of starvation--and if this system not only causes injustice and misery to all these millions, but does not even make the few who profit by it happy--if the tendency is also to make them immoral--if instead of promoting liberty, it--on the contrary--makes slaves of all, not only of employees but also of employers, so that neither is free to be generous or just to the other and both are skirting ruin--the employer in the shape of bankruptcy, and the employee in the shape of unemployment; and last but not least, if this system is stupid--of all the stupid systems conceivable the most stupid--and I have been able to call as witnesses to this a.s.sertion the admittedly ablest business men now living in America, what shall we shrewd, practical Americans have to say in defence of it?

But we have still two important results of the compet.i.tive system to consider--the trade union and the trust; not only for the evils that attend them, but for the inevitable conflict to which they give rise.

The issue of this conflict is the real political issue of the day. All the political parties save only one are seeking to ignore it; but they cannot. It will end by either reforming or destroying them. To this question too much attention cannot be given, for upon it depends the survival of civilization itself.

-- 2. TRADE UNIONS

The attempt has already been made to show that the organization of trade unions and trusts was not due to accident, but was the necessary and inevitable consequence of the freedom of contract, freedom of industry, and freedom of trade inaugurated by the French Revolution.

These three so-called freedoms are a sentimental way of describing the compet.i.tive system, and as a matter of fact, not only make real freedom impossible, but pave the way for despotism--the despotism of the market in the first place and the despotism of the trade union and trust, to which the despotism of the market inevitably leads.

The illusion contained in the words "freedom of contract" is well demonstrated in the history of the trade union, for if the employee is to be free to make such contracts as he chooses, he is not only free as regards the contracts he chooses to make with his employer, but also as regards the contracts he chooses to make with his fellow employee. And amongst the contracts that he is free to make with his fellow employee is the contract not to work for his employer except under certain agreed conditions. In other words, the trade union is simply an expression of freedom of contract between employee and employee. But to what does this freedom of contract between employee and employee lead? It leads to a suppression of the freedom of contract, for it is an agreement not to work with the employee except under conditions imposed by the trade union. Freedom of contract, therefore, so far as the employee is concerned, under the compet.i.tive system compels employees to abandon freedom of contract.

This may seem paradoxical until we understand the real significance of it. Man stands between two alternatives--the unlimited freedom and insecurity of savagery and the limited freedom and security of civilization. This has been developed in the chapter on Property and Liberty and receives interesting confirmation in the history of trade unions, which has been too often and too well told to make it necessary to repeat it here. Suffice it to point out that all historians of the trade union movement record the fact that at the very time when employers were shouting for freedom of contract they pa.s.sed laws denying freedom of contract to workingmen.[83] But the very effort of the employers to prevent employees from combining with one another reduced wages to so low a level and brought about so wicked an exploitation of women and children and such unsanitary conditions of the whole working population, that a parliament of employers was as a matter of national defence compelled to restore to workingmen the right to agree to abandon freedom of contract.

It may appear to the unsophisticated that for a workingman to endeavor to escape from the tyranny of the employer by subjecting himself to the tyranny of the trade union is but a jump from the frying-pan into the fire. But such a conclusion would display woeful ignorance as to the whole trend of human development; that is to say, from involuntary subjection to a power over which we have no control, to voluntary subjection to a power over which we have control. This is the history of the development of all popular government. Reactionaries are disposed to dwell on what they call the tyranny of the majority and compare it unfavorably with the beneficent despotism of a Henri IV.

They, however, ignore the very material fact that an absolute monarchy represents an involuntary servitude over which the subject has no control; whereas the tyranny of a majority represents a voluntary subjection to authority over which we have control. It may be and undoubtedly is true that control over government even under popular forms of government is small and ineffectual; but I hope to make it clear in the chapter on the Political Aspect of Socialism[84] that the ineffectualness of our control over government is due to the compet.i.tive system and that under a cooperative system our control over government would be effectual; and that it is only under a cooperative commonwealth that the ideal democracy can be realized.

The development of trade unionism throws also a great light on the fact of human solidarity. Socialists are often accused of being theoretical and the bourgeois is disposed to regard human solidarity as a theory. But in the growth of trade unionism it will be observed that solidarity presents itself as a rock upon which the compet.i.tive system must ultimately be wrecked. The capitalist cla.s.s expressed its wish in the law of 1799, which was a law of oppression; but the inconvenient fact that women cannot be worked like beasts of burden under ground without arousing the sympathies even of the capitalist cla.s.s; that little children cannot be made to suffer and to starve without reaching the hearts of the whole nation, and that cholera bred in unsanitary dwellings will find its way to the doors of the rich, forced this same capitalist cla.s.s to abrogate the law of 1799; to abandon the policy of oppression in consideration of its own best interests.

So combinations amongst employees have grown in strength in spite of all the power of capital--political and industrial. This progress was inevitable. Given freedom of contract, or in other words, the compet.i.tive system; given some intelligence on the part of some of the proletariat; and some compa.s.sion in the hearts of some employers, and trade unions had to develop and grow in strength.

But now that they have developed and grown in strength--now that they can be said to have reached what seems to be maturity, let us consider how much good they have done. Let us discuss the unsolved and what I believe to be the insoluble problems that result from trade unionism.

Before entering into this subject, let me say that if I do not discuss here the merits of trade unionism it is not because I am not aware of them; but rather because in this work on Socialism, which I desire to make as concise as possible, it is not the merits of trade unionism which it is important to emphasize, but their demerits. Although the intelligence, order, and self-restraint displayed in the trade union movement must be to the eternal credit of the workingman, nevertheless all his efforts, however intelligent, however orderly, however sacrificing, have failed to solve the problem of the conflict between labor and capital. It is obviously wiser for the workingman to seek salvation where it is to be found than by clinging exclusively to trade unionism to abandon salvation altogether. Trade unionism, I cannot emphasize it too much--was and is still a necessary step in the development and education of the workingman; but it is only a step, and nothing demonstrates the inadequacy of trade unionism better than the conditions of unemployment that have existed during the last two years not only in the United States of America, but almost throughout the entire civilized world. It must not be supposed, however, that because trade unions are believed to have created new evils almost as intolerable as those they were organized to suppress, that trade unions are to be looked upon with disfavor. On the contrary, the whole argument of this book proceeds upon the self-evident fact that trade unions have performed a necessary function and are bound to perform a necessary function in the community until the trade union realizes its ideal, but that a realization of this ideal is impossible under the compet.i.tive system. In other words, the attempt will be made not only to demonstrate that trade unions have, under the compet.i.tive system, failed and must continue to fail to accomplish the work they set out to do, but that under the cooperative system they can and will attain their ideal--they can and will perform exactly what they started out to do. However much, therefore, our argument may demonstrate the failure of trade unions under existing conditions, it only leads to the triumph of trade unions under cooperative conditions. What the trade union has failed to do under compet.i.tion, it can and will accomplish under a cooperative commonwealth.